Reviews

About to speak of the film where widescreen nearly-pornography is rendered absolute, I prime you beforehand there will be no sentimentality in my review - I'll speak straight from the shoulder.

So, hail the sexual revolution, as it was said by the Swedish Eurodance band 'Army of Lovers' in the 90s; these and similar musicians, so glamorous and possessing springness ('Mr. President', 'E-Rotic', 'T-Spoon', etc), rejecting the centuries-old dogmata, sang rollicking songs about Coco Jamboo, Dr. Dick and Sex on the Beach. DOGmata were thrown to the DOGS, even though the church didn't experience times of adversity in the West, unlike in our country, in long-suffering Russia; and in the world of popmusic, that happened a couple of decades sooner than in cinema, and let me express my view, why. Many are too timid to visit spicy film shows: imagine your stiff school mistress going to some tear-jerker and, by chance, seeing you entering another showing room with an exciting female bum on poster! But as for dance floors, there's hardly anyone but youth, and they haven't had dubious glances on themselves in ages. A pop band plays free-and-easy hits; everybody sexually hunts everyone; and what causes that small culpable circle to move, are ecstasy Disco Biscuits. But even before the disco time, time of messing about, the sexual revolution won in terms of clothes! 40-45 years ago, even for those times, and even in Russia, it was unlikely that anyone, except old grannies in their senility maybe, would be outraged at wearing short dress or a miniskirt by a young girl. Because all sane people understood: the majority wore shorts and mini not because they were sexually driven and preoccupied with sex. Girls feel HOT but it has nothing to do with being HOT, it's just summer weather! All in all, after comparative equality of men and women had come and condoms as well as birth control pills had flooded the market of everyday goods, sexual revolution began to advance with giant strides, no doubt about it. As a result, the present is full of TV music videos with blue subjects like cherries with cream, passionate glances and sighs, and satin female bare feet; what is the most popular book, is an erotic novel ('Fifty Shades of Grey'), which has beat even 'Harry Potter', 'Twilight' and 'The Lord of the Rings'. Thanks to the marvellous success of the bestseller #1, the film of the same name showed box office running into $ half a billion. All the rest films of 'free-and-easy' content still fail in business, but that's certainly not because they are not desirable; people are just still too shy to visit such showings, concerned about being caught by those acquaintances who consider the word 'sex' to be a synonym for 'lechery'...

At that, all the hypocrisy around having sex is due to nothing more than the fact that sex organs, by some natural reasons, perform excretion functions as well... That's the only thing these organs came in for their 'ill fame'; but if they weren't connected with excretion in any way, no-one, I'm quite sure, would ever think about sex blameworthily! And the words literally (with neither biological terminology nor euphemistic connotation) nominating these organs and what they do - would never be considered 'dirty'!

But it's high time to give up speculating about 'what would be if pigs had wings'; they would be angels, huh; if is a big word. Here comes 'Love' by Gaspar Noé. First of all, I can't but express my indignation at the virtual ban of it with us in Russia! It was shown officially just once, in Saint Petersburg, with some well-known oppositionists attending the showing. This dismisses the suggestions adduced in my reviews of the films 'Pouta' (Czech Republic) and 'Pouhdistus' (Finland): I said they were not 'banned', just ignored by Russian distributors on the grounds of unprofitability... I should have had not high opinion of our powers that be! I should have known that market laws wouldn't work any longer if politics intervenes in various branches of life!

But what I'm still convinced of, is that it's public opinion in Russia that allows these people rule! It was curious for me to look through the 'Love' reviews posted by Russians! There were of course a couple of odd opinions. A religionist lamented his bitter fate: he was unable to drop the filmmakers in hell pan. A young woman lapsed into daydreams of her bygone love. But by and large, the prevailing public opinion can be reduced to: 'this is not the film we in Russia are in need of'; the whole globalising world doesn't keep in step - our beloved Russia is the only one who keeps in step. (Such a wild sentiment is just perfect for the current regime.) Some extolled Noé's talents to the skies and tried to find a black cat in a dark room, but there was no cat. Very few reviewers treated the film impartially. Namely, as just a film with mission to show that the civilisation (not Russia, though, I'm sorry to inform you!) has latched onto a fine art house film with sex as the lion's share of runtime! The box office is low, extremely low in comparison with 'Fifty Shades', but art house films are always getting next to nothing in comparison with blockbusters, not much of eyeopener! A 3D art house, are you kidding?! That Noé sure wanted to snatch a large sum. That you would probably ask me. And I'd answer: 3D here is not a blockbuster attribute, just a ground-breaking technical spec: the 'first 3D nearly-pornographic mainstream' status makes 'Love' a pioneering film!

When I've first time (still a child then) watched this film, I didn't doubt it was either Mexican or Brazilian. Years after, I hardly believed the Internet, that was just another film by Uncle Sam, as this land, in my opinion, always feasting its eyes upon its own efficiency and richness, was unlikely to film something capping joy of communists of every stripe and hue.

Yet, it's a fact! US did film that. As they say, an ideologically irreproachable film. I mean 'Socialist realism' ideology. And a flat ostracism in the Capitalist world is also a fact. In return, the film made out all right in the 'Eastern Bloc', and no surprise. Where it became the greatest hit, was my land, Russia.

'Cause being a proletarian meant to be in then, in Communists' time. While one shouldn't put being rich on airs, unless eager to get great problems... Of course, people still tried to earn a little extra money, either lawfully or not quite (where on earth from would otherwise appear a sarcasm like 'you must live on just your salary, wage slave!') However, they never made a song and dance about it. On the contrary, they would heartily deny being not short of bob. For example, my late grandpa (he worked at a higher education institution and jostled for all positions but president) would come to the point of uttering an absurdity trying to make me believe that in Soviet time: there were no domestics in houses of Communist Party top managers as well as in those of top musicians and scientists; people went by public transport rather than by taxi; people hardly ever deposited money in banks as they lived from payday to payday. And when I, smiling, would argue that I, despite not living in those times, know there were still all those things then - servants, taxi and private accounts - he would frown and say, well, perhaps, but personally, I've never heard of it.

This is it, an ideology gap. Nowadays, being poor has nothing to do with being in. On the contrary, modern Russians want, to an increasing extent, to have themselves addressed as 'Mister' rather than 'Comrade' or 'Dear'. Russian cars are called none other than 'scrap' and outlet store frequenters, 'beggars'. Outcast dogs and especially cats are often treated better than outcast people. And very few modern Russian people are likely to treat juvenile delinquents well, as it is commonly thought that one should work (unless being cripple) rather than plunder.

But yet, this is a perennial problem, frankly speaking. At all times and under all social conditions, there are waifs and strays, lead by particular young proletarians and sometimes even hushed up by ministers of religion. Indeed, mates, what chickens are we to beg and gobble garbage in cesspits?! Gotta be robbers!

And so new youngsters join theft ring in the crime…

And certain creative specialists, willing to extol them to the skies, do turn up. Certain politicians, willing to put romantic tales of aggressive lumpen proletarians on a pedestal, do turn up either. And there are always certain proletarians, a bit less lumpen (than those tales' characters), who follow these politicians blindly, as that's so big of them - to protect interests of the poor! But as soon as some of the poor manage to grow rich to some extent, they tend to repudiate the poor flatly and start hating the under age dregs of society as social chasm between them is growing… And then, politicians set enforcers against dangerous special offenders, so that 'respectable citizens' would vote for those politicians, who guard them from those, who shatter their peace and quiet, the most successfully. The circle closes up…

It is the same both at the first and now, was and is. Thereby, I've no pronounced idea on this film. It was just filmed to spide one ideology and to please the other. A burning problem was raised deliberately; it was filmed in real slums with real guttersnipes instead of actors; the story was dialogued so that the poor had the red colouring of proletarian heroes and the rich, the white colouring of haughty touchy persons. The film's musical topic was originally the sentimental 'fishermen's march' by Dorival Caymmi; it was deliberately covered by the Soviet popscene so that the Russian lyrics would tell of an orphan beggar who scowls at the blue-ribbon residential areas and deep in his heart dreams of spilling the blood of their inhabitants, having fleeced them down to the last scrap as a preliminary…

Any doubts that these guys won't be found wanting to do exactly that? What do you think the opening rape scene tells of? Even Laurie, the vicious and deadly female character of the 'Watchmen' film, verily believed that a male capable of rape was worth hating. Isn't it reasonable?.. Thus, brigands and robbers of all hues, even if 'the rule here is' to justify them, are in fact inhuman and immoral

I was wrong to think that my most favourite dystopia had never been filmed. There is actually a screen version, and those who filmed it were the Western Germans, and the year was 1982. Since the crowd funding project via the Russian Internet appeared to be unsuccessful as the Russian world wouldn't give the hard-earned money for such cause as a Russian filmisation of some century-old controversial novel by a Russian-born emigrant writer, the Germans are unlikely to have competitors… But... Never is a long day! Someone who really praises this work of literature managed to get a qualitatively digitized copy of its nearly dead screen version. And – to translate it into Russian, using the opportunity since the book is originally in Russian of course. As a writer, Zamyatin is indeed quite controversial: some praise his writings and some just loathe them, but one can't remain indifferent about them, it takes only to start reading... Like it or not, the novel 'We' has been popular all over the world for ages and, in spite of being, in the respect of popularity, second to the Western dystopias 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' and 'Fahrenheit 451', does pretend to be one of the most noted Russia-associations. However, the only 'We' screen version is recalled in the West as well only by certain people (who have watched it on TV). That one of the users here on the IMDb, who applied to the German studio which had filmed it and was answered that it had been lost, might be rather interested to find out it finally surfaced! At least we Russians have now an opportunity to watch the film to pay a tribute to a Russian who did something close to revealing the entire genre to the world, dystopia fantastic novel! Personally I'm a fan of this Zamyatin's work since the very first opening of the book: at Russian schools, this novel is part of senior pupils' syllabus (although it, finished in 1920, was first published in the author's motherland only in 1988), as the modern authorities see a strong anti-Soviet sarcasm in it, which is profitable for them. But as for the film, taking my seat to watch it, I hardly expected anything fine: I'm convinced of a priori mismatching of some books with their screen versions. What I got, was quite a literal fidelity to the main feature of the hypothetic remote-future society described by Zamyatin: all inhabit the same glass rooms where blinds are drawn just for an hour – for a 'Sexual' one. As a matter of fact, when success in this point of filming went to their heads, the filmmakers substantially stinted themseves of all the rest. How much could be shown in a big way: clashes of revolutionaries with Guardians, panic among those cogs in the One State's machine who had first seen wildlife… Huh, they could at least show those free apemen coated with hair! But the entire film is just a curious and quite spectacular mirror trick as a scant number of actors and extras reflect in mirrors manyfold, and cohorts of 'numbers' whose motions, synchronous and consuming not much power, are bred-in-the-bone. A teleplay, not a true film. Perhaps a show ballet. But no cinema magic. At that, at least some of the actors – Dieter Laser, Sabine von Maydell, Heinz Moog – it's no trifle… But hey, some guys perform on stage just as hobby and, on my honour, do no worse than here; all they need is a lighting director who knows much about optics. Darn! I clean forgot. The film has some cachectic nude.

But I perhaps have no right to resentment: my dream to watch a movie on my favourite novel has come true, and I, after all, know now that there is still the film 'We' – and not just somewhere in mouldy archives! Zamyatin has, to a certain extent, been the mastermind behind the much-talked-of anti-totalitarianism authors: Aldous Huxley with his 'Brave New World'; George Orwell, '1984'; and Ray Bradbury, '451 °F'. I mean, it's profoundly symbolic that the author of the 'landmark decision' on how to denounce cynical social order in literary satire, was Russian. Well, the short story 'The New Utopia' by Jerome K. Jerome, the novel 'The Iron Heel' by Jack London were published prior to Zamyatin's 'We'; Jules Verne himself sometimes made free with his reputation by releasing novels like that ('The Begum's Millions' etc.) Yet, priority on this matter is ours as we ('second best' distressful; the Chinese are the 'best') have always had authorities that would just say 'Citizens die like flies? Never mind: women will bring new ones into the world'… Yes, we have some classic writers whose works of mid 19th century in the best way possible revealed the essence of the fact that power was always spilling blood. Those who have read the poem 'The Railway' by Nikolai Nekrasov (about a host of the dead while constructing the first Russian railway) and the last chapter of 'The History of a Town' by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin (where the town's last Governor acted like no less than a totalitarian leader) can't but recall the deadly perfect One State where the Benefactor is able to ruin any 'number' with his love! Nowadays, there are certainly films casting a sinister dystopian mist over filmgoers from all over the world and really thrilling. But often, these films are pure fluff, just fun to watch. Examples include: 'Equilibrium' AKA 'Cubic', 'The Matrix', 'V for Vendetta', 'The Island' and 'Cloud Atlas' (well now, the latter is a crackerjack film due to the amazing South Korean 'Soap'!). But 'We' doesn't agree with the film business laws: you'd rather not film it at all if you can't involve such graphics as Cameron did in his 'Avatar'! However, that's my opinion, while the West Germans had a different one, and I, as a true lover of Zamyatin's novel, deep in my heart, can't but thank them for their nice try!

This is the first time I have, eager to 'know the enemy', not given a damn about the feud with the 'Axis' warriors of the World War II and have watched a film — regarding the position of the opposing force. What affected my choice, was, perhaps, the current situation, when, with the outbreak of the most recent war, I have been getting more and more uneasy about the thought, that the previous war was, in fact, far less unambiguous than the banal cliché 'Great Partiotic War', what we call it in Russia meaning homespun truth: 'we had been under attack — so we stroke back'. In actual fact, the USSR just certainly participated in the most awful war of all time. And that was participation to full capacity, our land was lucky to have so much human and economic resources, that, paying little attention to casualties and even speaking about colossal casualties need with a plump 'YES'... In the both world wars' history there were neither the right nor the wrong, neither the defenders nor the aggressors, neither the conscientious nor the deceitful. What there were, was just overcrowded battlefields and tremendous massacres due to the super-powerful military blocs' confrontation. And Germany was against all. It is not just German propaganda! Because saying that Japan and Italy sufficiently helped the Reich to achieve, by 1942, impressing spreading over the larger part of Europe, from Norway, France, and Greece, eastwards to the Lower Volga, — would be, quite sure, a hypocrisy. The Germans (there is no denying their fantastic fighting spirit and self-denial), under their Führer, Hitler, an Austrian himself actually, would indeed approach the Superpower status — only to be eventually pulled up and occupied by the wartime allies whose coalition, however, dissolved shortly after. The former have gone down in history as the monstrous evil fanatics, tormentors of peoples, and what of it? image of the enemy (especially of the shattered one) is likely to be demonised, and since the war was the most monstrous one, the demonisation was likely to reach the unparalleled extent. Jews, alas, have always been destroyed; antisemitism has still not ceased to exist. Shootings of civilian population and property destruction by advancing or retreating troops used to take place on any war and still does. When the war was over, the German and the Japanese rulers were dismissed and they were in the dock, accused of 'war crimes', but that was because the winner is always right and judges the beaten. Just a decorum of diplomacy. I even wonder why so many people still believe that was really a holy violence and a fair trial. And the current war, Donbass war, must wipe out the rose-coloured view of victory in the anti-Nazi war, as Nazism then was not a simple and unambiguous enemy, and there was no deathnail for it then. Today, some heavy-metal songs from the turn of the 1980s and 1990s are extremely topical again. As they describe bombing; warn that just as decades ago the Nazi Germany recarved the map of Europe, sparks of crematory fire of death camps are still visible; narrate the stories of hirelings of dirty tricks and monkey business. In fact, I, just a teenager that time, foresaw that revanchism, that came up in our pluralism age together with any other 'dissenting opinions', would lead to no good... But the Germans are just the ones who least of all stick to their demands in this regard! And the world is lucky to have SUCH Germans today, as otherwise, it might be a World War III with once more 'Germany against all' - and doomsday! However, Germany at the moment needs revanchism like one needs a hole in the head. Who eulogise it, are rulers of Eastern European states as it is a safe bet of giving up everything that connects with Russia, the parent state, and that is none of Germany's business. But how are we Russians going to solve the current pending problem, — that is the challenge. We would be lucky to have the majority once again, as in 1941, been convinced of being victorious: 'victors need never explain'... But what if not?..

Having grounded the significance and topicality of this film, I am going to describe its advantages. This old film measures itself against many modern war films as well as it is still thrilling-to-watch. Almost no 'tall tale' but striking accent when meeting almost any Russian characters (bit parts). Why not involve Russians in auding. There have always been millions of those abroad ('Iron Curtain' is also just a cliché shown to the best advantage by certain circle, isn't it?). The female unit episode is certainly a shocksploitation, but there is a black sheep in every flock. And why, the Western filmmakers showed the Soviet female warrior not just as an abusive woman who immediately laid her arms down and gave in to the Germans. Instead, this composite character is shown as a female hero who combats the enemy many times superior, ready to sell her life and honour dearly...

But the Germans are main characters here. They are neither protagonists here, nor those who are praised and white-washed. We see them such as they must have been on that war. Soviet posters showed them next to trench rats with arms round each other, and quite similar to each other, and that was not just propaganda. No military bearing in the war: it is at the parade where a fighter is clean-shaven, and wears full-dress uniform, and is in blanched boots! While in trenches, even the question of insignia is often of no importance. (Because an officer who keeps subordination too zealously takes chances to have his own soldiers got rid of him). So some exclusively brave Wehrmacht soldiers would wear trophy Red Army garments, give higher commanders a piece of mind, pardon Soviet captives and even exchange defeatist views, wishing Hitler himself 'kaputt'!

The words in my review's title are the reference to the romantic poem 'The Two Giants' by the well-known Russian poet Lermontov; and as for the poem, it (just normally for any major creative works) may be interpreted as loosely as one likes. Experts in literature, however, believe this poem of the two giants fighting is in fact about Napoleonic invasion of Russia in 1812, as the same poet later, on the same topic, the Battle of Borodino, released the masterpiece 'But tell me, uncle, why our men let Moscow burn, yet fought again to drive the French away? ' The two giants' hand-to-hand fight, a metaphorical description of persistent struggle of the powers for a land where simple people live meekly awaiting who wins and thus whom to submit, is literally true either in the centuries-old drama of feud between Russia and Poland…

This Polish film is certainly 'throwing stones at our Russian window'. If the events described in it were not that temporally distant, those would be not even 'stones' but 'swell cobble-stones'. As a major defeat, sustained by the Red Army, is shown here while the Red Army is still considered to be invincible in stereotyped social view of Russia. But alas, those Russians as well, to whom history is not alien, do know that catastrophic defeats causing bitterness of forfeit in terms of land and, on a large scale, of influence, were sustained by us more than once; moreover, many splendid victories of Russia were canceled out before we could reap their fruits. This was like nobody's business vividly in evidence as concerns confrontation with Poles who still name their country 'Rzeczpospolita' which sounds magniloquent for slavophones. The phrase 'with varied success' ideally fits here like nobody's business! Some people even believe that Russians simply misappropriated the right of bearing the name 'Russians', as historically, where now major Russian cities are situated, no Slavs at all used to be; there were Finno-Ugrs who used to live there; also, centuries-old experiences as a Turkic-Mongolian tributaries (those guys from the Golden Horde often acted with fire and sword) was likely to have left our nation marked for life… How many words in Russian are heavily Turkic! How many geographical names in the seemingly 'hail-fellow-well-met' Russian backwoods are heavily Finno-Ugric! And as for the territories just a bit westwards of the Russian cities of Tver and Bryansk (i.e. what is now Belarus, Poland, the Baltic states and the Ukraine) a powerful Slav-led kingdom used to be not so long ago, and its population minded very much Muscovy's bold push for (laying a claim to) the Third Rome standing (became cheeky, huh?!)! Thus, some haters say, there is no word for it! Muscovites have the nerve to boast their 'Russianity', while the Ukraine people, and Poles, and Belarusians, and Lithuanians have to content themselves with supporting roles of 'quasi' nations, which had the very opportunity to appear just by chance of epic fails of the said Muscovites; and the latter ones would get enthusiastic about some dubious, spouting blood, idea (Tsarism, Sovietism, Yeltsinism, specify) and tend to infect half the world with it – at that, the aforesaid Poles & Co. would be likely to suffer most of all… Hard to say, whether this is true, but in the end, never mind what used to be, what we eventually have here – that matters; he laughs best who laughs last. But there is neither 'last' victory, nor 'last' revolution, nor 'last' reform: as there is no last number on number line. Please not again! keep hoping... But Slavs are again killing Slavs for for the right of bearing the title of the Power… History repeats itself, history continues… It is unclear yet if the Polish and the Finnish experience would be useful for the Ukraine...

What one should show in a film telling of one of the most severe cants of the wheel of history? when it is being defined, regarding this or that country, whether to be or not to be; regarding this or that truth, is it going to win or to be defeated? (Each country either by armed force or, less likely, in specie settles the bill of its sovereignty; truth has always fallen upon truth as even our ape-like ancestors would fall upon each other, holding cudgels, whooping each one's own deity's – or one's own chief's – name). One should show heroic upsurge of the nation which was determined to, ad rem, not just yell scurrilous things (especially, outraging national leaders of the state one hates), but also combat to the death etc. And the Poles have managed to show this: even the blockheads who would always be boozing in inns became, in actual fact of the war, capable signalmen and cipher officers who tried their best to service their motherland while simple soldiers were working wonders on the Vistila beating back the Red Army, which was at the gates of Warsaw, just going to seize it… One should show the combat itself: bloody, tremendous, plausible. And it is shown like this! Trenches heaped up with the killed and the wounded whose bodies are trampled on by the alive, hurling themselves at the enemy to fight hand-to hand... Violence in action and in a lull... Soldiers' sweat, and blood, and abuse... What a moment when a Red Army soldier is caught red-handed, raping a civilian woman! The 'red' commander indulgently offers him to marry her – or to be shot and killed! What the soldier answers and what happens next, is so special…

In all fairness I must say, the Poles are not that poor wretch. Time and again, certain Polish hawkish circles would goad this honourable Slavic power into reckless wars where the Poles, not reckoning with domestic casualties and, all the more, giving their enemies no quarter, would try their best to, if not defeating, do them maximum harm, spoil all their plans

Annals of history are a long story of a sea of blood... It is difficult to argue. There is virtually not a single remote corner of Europe where nobody has ever spilled someone's blood. No surprise that today, there are so many relatively small countries on this small continent with fancifully indented coasts. And all these states were always at loggerheads with each other, time and again recarving the map, taking neighbours up, conquering them, decaying themselves as a result of civil dissension… Heaven knows how many world wars (Pan-European at least!) Europe, that cradle of nationalism, has suffered historically! But there were considered to be just 2 world wars: the most monstrous ones, both having wiped away from the face of the earth tens of millions of people and a few empires as well!

When thinking about all this, one is willy-nilly likely to become filled with a holy terror; as one tries to imagine oneself were among those 'cogs in the machine' whom POWERS THAT BE dispatch with one dread glance to that dead waste which is called war. And war has almost nothing to do with anything humanistic; 'almost' – because some people do try by-passing the martial laws and helping neighbour, but are usually exposed and executed … And war is normally a survival-of-the-fittest (or, appreciably less likely, a survival-of-the-sliest) environment. It is unlikely that a feeble, meek one would survive the war…

All these conspicuous facts have been shown in the said Russian-Finnish film. Such films are useful. They cynically break the rose-coloured specs people see through and wipe false smiles away from the faces of the of diplomats. Even such a tiny and seemingly odd land as Finland had to suffer world wars to suit its own ends and at least repeated its lesson of hatred according to the high (not the highest though) standards. Constrained between Scylla and Charybdis, i.e. Russia and Sweden, this nation has suffered centuries-old confused state, in terms of language as well: whether to speak own autochthonal Finnish tongue, or Russian, or Swedish. Partly, lingual situation is still in a turmoil in Finland, but how awful it was then, in 1918, when one might be even shot and killed for improper accent! The most frantic daredevils in the Finnish society would go to work and discriminate 'aliens' against; and even set a shining example to those hesitant about whether to destroy 'aliens' or not. He that is not with his nation is against it, said the daredevils to those who did not mind the existing priorities – thus making them to participate in giving short shrift to Russians (representatives of Finland's former 'parent state') and to their local Finnish sidekicks. Little Finland suffered its own Civil War simultaneously with Russia, and just like in Russia, it was fought between the "Whites" (anti-Soviet forces, which were backed by several Western powers) and the "Reds" (Communist forces), but the result was quite the opposite. The German-backed "Whites" beat the "Reds" all to ribands and the White Terror beat the Red one to nothing.

I am quite confused to describe how much I was impressed by this film… It is fearful simply because it touches upon relatively little-known events which are difficult to be grasped with mind and which unsheathe just one conjecture. That is, no nation on earth boasts clean hands. Some always die so that others live. You would not wish living "in the wrong place at the wrong time" on your worst enemy.

I was petrified of this film

In this old Chris de Burgh song, an ironic one - I would just say, quite a sweet and a nice one - those meaningful words are solemnly spoken by an American spy on night out in a bar in Moscow; this one realises like nobody's business a truism as old as the hills: thou wouldn't grasp Russia with mind, but thou fool, no living man may hinder Russia as it is able to ruin anyone with its love No way, a Westerner would not grasp 'mystifying Russian soul', but since Russia, like it or not, as fate of history had willed it and at the price of several tens of millions of lives, assured the undisputed runners-up title in the world order, subjects of pragmatic and liberal Western world have nothing to do but to have little liking for and, rather, a dread of, that second-place echelon which breathes down their necks. That is about par for the course, so humanly: disliking one's rivals, grudging neighbours their success And if it came to pass, competitive neighbours lead their lives not exactly what one understand by 'civilised development' - the Lord himself, however culpable it would sound, has commanded to detest them!

But hey, all the aforesaid is indeed a truism as old as the hills! Why then folks in Russia are jumping on a Western film about them?! Where have all those faultfinders not gone over: from Red Army insignia discrepancy to error of fact regarding Khrushchev; from ethnic dissimilarity causing Western actors' inability to play Russians - to scriptwriters' unawareness of Stalingrad Tractor Plant layout plan I could have defeated each point completely; could have given such a rebuke to each one, that each one would realise one's criticism would not stand up to criticism itself (to make a clean breast of it - their criticism isn't worth a tinker's curse!), but I would rather dwell on just two moments of truth. Just those very things (again, that is about par for the course) arouse indignation of those who get indignant at the film's dubious scenes and forget the saying 'if the cap fits, wear it'. That is: barrier troops in operation and bawdiness as between the male and female protagonists

Now listen to this, misters, if you got enraged when Western film-makers had shown too literal sense of war, moreover - of the most awful war of all times (this sense is: if you have been called up for fighting for your land, but chicken out, then you would better have both hands run over by a tram, otherwise you will have to hurl yourself at the enemy and not to retreat in confusion), that means not only that you have never been to war, but have not been interested in it. Or have always taken a rose-coloured view of war - as if it were something like an amusing shooting game. Like Wolfenstein, the extravagant plot of which - an American superhero overwhelms Hitler the robot - BTW, was so popular that just that very action game got rise to one of computer game main genres altogether, a 3D action. Well, I understand those who prefer living blissfully unaware of what the world order really is: witnesses are to be rubbed out! The present writer has never been to war but belongs to currently combatant nation, Russia. As Donbass War is in fact a moment of truth in its own manner: slyboots are being unmasked, righteous indignation is being reasoned, hackneyed existential fear tends to well up within; and finally, it is now turn of cynical and odious propaganda masterminds, who sooner or later, put a question with an edge to everyone: Who are you with, daredevil? He that is not with his nation is against it, thus a public enemy supposed to go through repressions.

And as for casual sex among the bodies of soldiers sleeping side by side - it is 'elementary, my dear Watson' (as Sherlock Holmes would say) at all. I hold in high respect centuries-old culture of Christianity, where one must love none but god and, a fortiori, even the idea of desecrating the battlefield with sexual behaviour is impermissible! But isn't it high time for the fig-leaf to to go out of fashion?! You whom it sickens, turn aside. But you would neither deny that there was still sex at the Eastern Front! And indeed, many women cohabited with rear staff officers and took sulphapyridine (they believed ability to cause unwanted child's misbirth of that remedy for infection) on the sly while their husbands were dying on active service.

However, I am going to bat for the film I used to watch more than once and still honour, not to vex those who, seemingly, treat it as untouchable. I just want to thank the West in these latter days of extraordinarily dramatic events for it, notwithstanding the unremitting animosity towards us, pays a tribute to us as to the potential adversary No 1 and shoots (attention! - first and foremost, for domestic market, thus for forming public opinion in their own countries!) high-budget films, where it is not an American flag that is waved, but a Soviet one. And thus a film-goer supports not Rambo, who kills thugs, who weari Soviet uniform, outright and on the spot, but the high-minded Soviet sniper Vasily Zaytsev who, notwithstanding all the totalitarian atrocities of his Motherland, loves it and shoots his coarse rifle accurately killing the invading aliens, who wear full-dress uniform and declaim with bombast that they came to 'exempt Russia from Jewish political instructors and that bloody Stalin, the arsonist and the murderer'

One of the most Russophobic films in recent years was called into being by just another coil of confrontation between the Russian under empire and the Western superpower lead largely by the US, which started just from the Russian-Georgian war and is at its peak right now, when the army of the vast Ukraine, rather than of tiny Georgia, is serving its purpose. One-sided portrayal of war crimes (laying the whole blame on Russia) is in the film; it is what it is, a Russophobic film (but Russophobia will cease prevailing only when the 'Russian empire' gets the upper hand). Mercenaries fighting for the interests of Russia are shown here. The main characters are American war correspondents trying to broadcast the hot news, arranging it in the Russophobic point of view. We Russians dislike such a film as 'war crimes' and 'mercenraries' are considered to be bad things and working for 'Russophobic propaganda', to be public enemy. But!

The expression 'war crimes' is no less hypocritical silliness than 'too cruel hangman'. Doing the dirty work - killer's work - one has no time for getting mushy. The one who shouts about some 'codes of war honour', 'rules of war' and 'maxim of war law' from the rooftops must be an evil sly 'puppeteer'; the one who believes it must be an 'obedient puppet'! They say, the Axis warriors of Stalingrad campaign lamented bitterly for need to combat the Red Army according to the 'unfair', 'barbaric' rules imposed on them by the latter. Weren't they delirious, those encircled poor things?! War is neither boxing nor Greco-Roman wrestling to play the game! People just kill in war not to be killed themselves and ignore politeness and morality. And if it comes to that, Americans committed the most awful 'war crime' of all times using nuclear weapons, but the world community did not mind it. Moreover, the Japanese themselves treat those who defeated them with piety. Modern Japanese at least is almost Pidgin English, isn't it a telltale proof of accepting defeat?

As for 'mercenaries', is there really a chasm between shabby 'dogs of war' who fight for warmongers' blood money and the holy warriors who combat their motherland's foes? THE RED ARMY STAFF GOT MONEY ALLOWANCE. This is, BTW, an elementary dethronement of the myth that the Red Army was nothing but a horde of slaves who fed German guns with their flesh out of fear of being shot by their own people. See, the only difference between a mercenary and a soldier is, who the employer is: a 'private trader' and 'state', respectively. Please, all claims - to war managers and economists: it is they who decide whether to use mercenaries or to involve state-owned soldiery...

And as for ideology, pleasing one party and displeasing the other, let it be on conscience of those who order it and who rush the order; while the will of citizens is either to select any ideology or to be Nihilists. The latter, who are often real cosmopolitans, despise the former, find them 'mob' and put on them the blame for letting themselves push around by their governments, for following the short-term tastes of opportunistic authorities. Well, myself, I had a chance of immigration into Norway but eventually, I found myself back home in Russia, in my native under empire.

I find this film rather topical. At the moment, it is available in Russian as well, although on release date, it was, due to ostracism, not dubbed in Russian. Probably, some people from lands formerly dependent upon Russia had dubbed the version I watched: there was a slight accent, and no surprise. Today, Russian is still native language for millions of people all over the former Soviet territory, but the further a representative of once dominating nation goes outside 'Muscovy', the more likely something discouraging about Russia is heard by it. And it is said by the former Russian subjects in more or less clear Russian, so that it would sound clearer and thus more offensive. But these are just illusions. It is not the language that weights but how one treats Russia.

But Russia is only treated as an empire. If asked whether to prefer ideas, language, and lifestyle of own nation triumphant all over the world or those of the alien, opposing nation, - one would most likely choose the former. Thus, the majority of Russians would like to have Russian, rather than American and English, cinema, style and language dominant on Earth, isn't it reasonable?

But this is an 'alternative reality'. Whilst in real life, even in this particular case of decisive Russian victory, the Americans found an outstanding Finnish director who had shot some films about Russia (i.e.'knows the enemy'), appointed some American, Jewish, Croatian and Finnish actors (all but Russians and Georgian, alas) and cashed up the money needed to film about glorious Georgia combating evil Russia. What have we here? Just a ridiculous grotesque. As if some drunk guy attacked a bouncer, was flung away, but crept out, mumbling (now insipid): 'catched it?! want more?'

Such 'pug-films' flying at 'Russia the elephant' have always existed and will certainly be released in future. In case the Ukraine suppresses Russian-backed Donbass and finishes fracturing Lenin statues all over the country, films like this will be likely to expect to be shot even in the lands of uncultivated film industry (Moldova perhaps). And so it will last until Russia is largely looser. But should the new turn of the wheel of fortune lift Russia up, we will be right, as winner is always right.

Why Czechs and Slovaks dislike us Russians, can be seen in this film. I guess I would not be quite mistaken supposing that in Russia, even a History teacher would hardly ever tell about the 1968 Czechoslovak events to the schoolchildren while in Czech Republic and in quite recently independent Slovakia, those days of bless memory are known by heart as Pater Noster. Eager to comprehend THEIR truth, even though this is nothing but aiming at knowing the enemy, I made myself to find and watch the film 'Anglické jahody' which is rare in Russia.

You may blame me for psychological complexes, for bad taste – never mind, but those Czechs are always emphasising the sex topic, and it really disturbs me. The very first frame is the idyllic pic: on the eve of the Soviet intervention (which was, by the way, supported in word and deed by all the rest allies of the USSR, excluding Romania; but that fact is certainly not an insult for Czechs and Slovaks: there was no malice on any part but the USSR – they were all forced to join the evil Russians), the two cute Czech girls (moreover, one accompanied by her minor niece) are rowing their boat discussing pregnancy interruption remedies! The pregnant one is adviced to take certain drugs and in case they are unavailable, simply to ask a "true man" to squeeze everything out! Then, all throughout the film, the main characters – the female (exactly the little lady who was adviced to undergo the dreadful folk medicine procedure) and the male (her unlucky lover who is unaware of her, put it mildly, easy virtue or prefers neglecting it) – seem being uneasy about their future unwanted infant rather than about their country's fate (while many older people, men as well, on those days, do no less than crying and quenching their sorrow with stingo or even 'slivovice'). Also, there is a moment here when a person, about which even Czechs themselves would say 'it is what he is, a rural old man', having been drunk, urinates defiantly on the side of the Soviet patrol. What is absolutely honest in this moment (causing wild delight among the patriotic Czechs and Slovaks), is that none of the soldiers succumbed to the provocation. None even seemed to mind it in the least. But the man was quite sure he was safe, he would not dare committing that otherwise!

Altogether, the film reflects all those cynical realities well; accusing it of lie could be unfair, whilst lie is likely to be used when filming a piece of propaganda where one is praised and the other is demonised. The Czechoslovaks did not venture on any kind of a serious resistance in 1968. Since then, our guys hardly used arms at all. For instance, far more Hungarians in 1956 and even Azerbaijanis in 1990 fell the victims of the 'Russian aggression'. At 'Prague Spring' suppressing, casualties were scarce and accidental which is reflected in the film 'Anglické jahody'. Two teenagers got some prop firearms on the set of some WW II film and played a joke with aiming at a group of Soviet troops. One of us shoots that kid in feet – and eventually, he dies due to delayed medical aid. So, dear devotees of democracy and Western values, be sure: the Soviet military operation was held with maximum moderation and civilisation. But that is one thing; quite another is that the USSR is the Evil Empire anyway and the very fact of feeble effort in the western direction, even bloodless at all, is considered by the Western world to be just another proof of the Russian Bear's notoriety. Whilst Czech Republic is treated as a friend all in all by the West. Thus, 'Anglické jahody' main character, embodying the Czech youth, finds his homeland the unlucky ancestors' shelter and is eager to flee to England, so that he gets strawberry picking seasonal job there. What? Strawberry is already gone? Then apples... Whatever to pick, the goal is getting away westwards from the parents, leaving them with their 'slivovice' bottle and dreams of disserving the 'evil Russian Communists'!

What are we Russians in this film? For reasons of convenience, the Ukraine actors have been invited for playing Russians. Not bad, but they do speak Russian with accent. However, why the units could not consist mainly of the Ukraine guys; or of the guys from the regions which are not far from the Ukraine (lots of Russian people, especially in the Southwest and South of European Russia, have more or less of the Ukraine accent). They are not bloody horned demons but simple youngsters ordered to do in Czechoslovakia nothing but cordoning off and guarding everything. One of the main characters, a Soviet deserter, makes friends with the Czech sweethearts as he, just like the Czech guy, is eager to flee to the West: why not try to escape over the Iron Curtain if one had a chance. The main male character hardly knows a single Russian word; while his girlfriend, quite a chick, speaks Russian fluently and you know what? she makes eyes at the 'bloody occupant' not in the way a polite girl should...

And beyond all that Apocalypse of good old Czechoslovakia, some male performer of this country is singing at a measured pace but hysterically, in Russian with a slight accent, something like: my good son, a hero you think you are?!

A single note of the approaching Russian troops is often enough to make people in the zone of Russian interests immediately understand: resistance is futile. But is there anyone combating the opposing force? Well, in the Dutch film 'Lily Was Here', local Dutch nationalists killed an American serviceman. Not everyone does not mind about foreign troops in homeland! But what to do if you are from neither of the two superpowers! Sad but true!

Here comes another film allegedly banned in Russia... Whilst in large parts of Europe free from the proverbial 'Russian World global project' (especially in Czech Republic where it was shot), this controversial creative work has certainly not been out of place. Some are eager to make everyone believe that Russia is nothing but a detention camp where all are fed the same gruel, where it is foolish to expect that each cell will hold the net and that they will arrange a mandatory viewing of 'The Shawshank Redemption'. Well, boil over, you Stormy Petrels of the new Russian Revolution, there is still pluralism in contemporary Russia! And, in particular, the film we are speaking about was available on the festival 'CZECH IN', which has been held in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and a couple of major Russian cities annually for the last several years.

However, my irony is easy to be parried by many of those who belong to the groups, for whom the words like 'KGB legacy in the modern Russian regime' or 'Ruscism' are password into the world of freedom of conscience rather than just empty words; of course, the expression 'modern Russia as a detention camp' is a sarcastic hyperbole under the motto 'no rest for the wicked regime': instead of resting on their laurels, those in power have to be constantly looking around, whether someone recalcitrant holding a brick, broken out of the walls of the Kremlin, is taking aim at them...

But I personally am cowardly enough to prefer not to bother myself with such inconvenient questions as 'am I a hero or a timeserver', but also, from time to time, to make fun of those who do bother. Yet I understand that someday, I might be quite pinched on by the geese I am teasing here right now (should the time of such 'geese' indeed come in long-suffering Russia).

However, I have watched 'Pouta' aiming completely not at that supreme and noble (in opinion of the civilised society, necessary to mention!) goal of ascension beyond that obdurate casemate, inveterately permeated with totalitarianism heavy smell, where Russia has again locked itself voluntarily. What an irony I have, writing all the aforesaid! Combating Putin regime by means of a film like 'Pouta'? (The main antagonist resembles Putin himself and is, just as Putin in the past, a Communist secret service functionary.) Homeric laughter! All the more so, none at all but festival maîtres, from which it has snatched its lot of praises, noticed it: box office was zilch...

Everything is much easier: I wanted some suspense and noir from 'Pouta'. And, honestly, I have found some. Although I am not thrilled. The end was quite disappointing: I would not expect the main heroine to get away so easily. No, I am not a cruel person but a realistic one. So I expected such an ending from the film, where an innocent girl, a simple crane operator, rejected courtship of a villain, a communist serviceman, preferring rather death, that the fur would really fly... But alas, the man with a REALLY Russophobic last name, Rusnák, have not been monstrous enough... Despite Ondřej Malý, as the film was being watched, repeatedly made an impression of an actor able to play someone to be described like this: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. Just see: the best spy, in the opinion of the top-brass (next best, with the top-brass itself being the best of the best, certainly); hits densely when pistoling; would morally rape the dissident he 'takes care of' so that the latter is available for twisting around little finger (you bet: striking a chord in one's intimate life could be worse than the notorious third degree! however, he is able to smash anybody, even a tall trasher, despite being so short himself); but at that, he suffers awful fits (panic attacks, things like that) and occasionally behaves as a weak female (drinks heavily and complaints about his school past where he was bullied; breaks dishes and expels his wife from the own home). A fearful man altogether. Kind of a fairytale antagonist though – simultaneously fearful and funny. So he occasionally resembled... Grouchy the Smurf: would always be saying 'I hate' never mind appropriately or not... So in the end, he failed...

P.S. A 2010 film. But the times they are a-changin': to date, it is quite a sedition even in Czech Republic. Since Zeman, the Czech President, likes Russia!

This is an adaptation of the novel by the female writer Sofi Oksanen - daughter of a Finn and an Estonian women (the latter emigrated to Finland yet in the Soviet era). One glance at this woman is enough to see what sort of person she is. People of art, especially in contemporary Scandinavia, are, quite frankly, those 'Jupiters', who are allowed a lot of things we 'oxen' are not allowed. But, seriously, getting acquainted with their works is order of magnitude more interesting and alluring than with, you know, socialist realism novels the authors of which were dressed in respectable jackets.

The same is here: the film based on the book by the contemporary Finnish émancipée really grabs me from the very first frame. The newly independent Estonia which has not yet entered into NATO and the EU. A cursed old house, like in some Grindcore song, hides numerous terrible secrets under its floorboards which are nailed perfectly still. Who lives in it, is of course a creepy old Finno-Ugric woman, who smokes better than an experienced young guy and grabs the sharp ax, should things go a bit wrong. She possesses a pistol as well, as it is later found out. An inscription like 'Russian whore' is shown off on the glass of her window. We see that a lot has gone through this backward old woman and that she would die hard anyway.

In her yard, a half dead escapee - a psycho prostitute girl, chased by her pimps - is trying to hide. Until the end it is not clear: whether God himself brought her exactly to THIS grandmother (in Estonia, after all those dreadful events they have survived, people do not believe in God: this is perhaps the only atheistic country in the world), or she knew beforehand who to seek. In general, in the abundance of flashbacks, the audience can easily read the extremely frank confession of the old Estonian woman, and there will be no doubt that the girl really was at the right time in the right place... And as for the bandits, they once again demonstrated all the riskiness of their ticklish 'craft'. Sometimes, they would get away in such scrapes, that even commandos would not. But here - just a miserable peasant old woman from a single-homestead settlement! Who knew that the granny was kind of Rambo! She would not be frightened by photos of mutilated corpses, by a knife or even by a pistol: in her lifetime, something worse could be seen...

And everything was right about the film (it even, dare I say it, is endowed with the aesthetics of death: puddles of blood with a metallic gleam, flames, carved autumn leaves), but the shocking end. I was just about standing up and cheering the 'Rambo grandmother' who had successfully born everything, when suddenly... The shock was not what I saw there. Shock was in irrationality of the final frame! She has survived all the atrocities throughout her life, if not a lightning incinerates me for such a cynicism, with flying colours. Whatever fell to her lot (torture and abuse, personal life failure and economic disruption) - she would just wash herself thoroughly (hence the name of the work) and her sly life goes on. But the fact of what the author made her heroine to do instead of the happy end, for me, crossed out everything that the author had spoken about the character above.

Hard to say what exactly influenced the author's choice of such a zigzag final (the novel and its film adaptation of the same name end the same, which of course, does not always happen). But one thing is certain. As long as society of many young nations (or rather of those which have existed for centuries, but almost always in their history dependent upon neighbours which have been more numerous, better politically organised and rich) perceives their past as 'genocide' ('playing the victim'), such stories will be just those caps that fit. Whether this is good or bad - who am I to judge. Dwell on the past and you may lose an eye; forget the past and you will lose both eyes out...